


Doing Something Different

by still_lycoris



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: After everything that's happened, Chris knows things will have to change.





	Doing Something Different

They didn’t have much time to talk at first.

The helicopter landed and there were all these people flooding around them, asking meaningless questions and Chris hadn’t known how to answer, he just wanted to get on the god damn helicopter and get the fuck _out_ of there because who fucking knew if any more of those fucking things were still out there? Who fucking knew if they still came out in the day, maybe they did or would and he just wanted to get out, he wanted to go _home_.

Maybe the people got it, maybe they understood because they started ushering them into the helicopter, letting them sit, calling for more help to look for the others.

It was only when they were in the helicopter, huddled together, Ashley with her head in her hands, Emily sitting as far away from Mike as she could, Sam shaking from head to foot and Mike just sitting, just sitting ... that was when Chris suddenly saw who was missing.

“Where’s Josh? Mike? You said you were gonna find Josh ...?”

And Mike just looked at him, looked at him with dull, shuttered eyes and Chris knew that everything hadn’t been okay, everything had been ... all wrong.

*

They weren’t allowed to talk to each other once they got back.

The police rushed them off to separate rooms before they had to time to do anything. They gave Chris coffee, which he didn’t want and asked him to tell them what had happened. Which he tried to do, he tried really hard but everything seemed to be coming out wrong in weird little stumbles.

“Josh is dead, isn’t he?” he remembered asking at one point. “I mean ... he’s dead?”

“We haven’t found Josh yet,” was the neutral answer. “Can you tell us more about the trap you said he was in?”

“It, it wasn’t _real_ , he made it up, he ... Josh made it up to freak us out, I thought ... I don’t get it, why wouldn’t he just have _talked_ to me?!”

The police didn’t care about that. They kept asking about the trap, about the stranger, about the idea that there were things on the mountain. Chris didn’t think they believed him. He wasn’t even sure he believed himself, except that he kept looking at his hands and thinking about the shotgun and the snow the mine tunnels and Josh, Josh, Josh ...

What were his parents gonna say? What would they think when they saw the burnt-out lodge, heard about everything? How could Chris tell them that Josh had pretended to be killed to freak Chris out? Fuck, would they have to tell them about the prank now? They’d all agreed not to when the first investigation had happened, fuck it had been Josh’s idea to just say they were playing a game that got out of hand (“Mom and Dad don’t need to know that shit, Mom and Dad don’t need to hear it, okay?”) Fuck, they’d have to tell people so much _shit_ ...

“Can I see the others?”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea right now.”

“But did you find Matt and Jess? Were they okay?”

“We found them both. Jessica was very badly hurt. Did Mike say anything about that?”

So the good news was buried under more questions.

*

They were allowed together again after the lawyers arrived.

Chris wasn’t sure who had called them. Just that suddenly, there was a lady in the room with them, throwing the police out, asking if he’d had appropriate medical treatment, telling him that he didn’t have to say anything else about anything and _wasn’t_ to say anything to anybody else until she’d vetted it. He was pretty sure she muttered something about the hole he’d dug already being big enough but he decided not to check.

The lawyers for the rest must have arrived around about the same time. At any rate, they were put in a room together – with lots of men and women in smart suits watching.

Jessica threw herself at Mike, sobbing hysterically. Matt ran to Emily and she hugged him tightly, babbling about how she’d been looking for him, how she’d worried about him so much while she was in the mines. Chris wondered if he ought to run to Ashley. She was sort of leaning back, hugging herself again, head slumped over, still in that fucking jacket with all the blood. She looked small and lost and why couldn’t he ever just do the right thing? 

Josh had been right about that.

Thinking about Josh helped him. He walked over to Ashley and touched her shoulder. For a moment, she stayed stiff, then suddenly, she fell against him and hid her face in his shoulder, shaking. Chris hugged her close and looked over at Mike.

“Josh?” he said again.

“I ... it took him away,” Mike said. “I told the police about it ... maybe they’ll do something.”

“I told them to go down the mines.” Sam’s voice was flat. “I told them. They’ll find him. If he’s down there.”

Chris put his face in Ashley’s hair. He didn’t want to think about the mines. He didn’t want to think about what the police might find down there. He didn’t want to think about anything else except going home, burying all of this in his head and pretending it had never happened.

Except if he did that, Josh would still be gone. And Ashley would be gone too. It wouldn’t make any difference. They’d tried it last year after Hannah and Beth and hadn’t worked.

He’d have to do something else this time.

They’d all have to do something else this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12dayschristmas


End file.
